MovieBob Reviews: FERDINAND (2017)

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Is Ferdinand any good?

It’s fine.

What’s it about?

A feature-length animated adaptation of “The Story of Ferdinand,” which you may have read as a kid or seen as a short-subject from Disney way back in the day.

Refresh my memory?

A beloved 1936 children’s book by Munro Leaf perhaps best known today for having been frequently banned by various authoritarian governments worldwide throughout the 20th Century for promoting the subversive ideology of Pacificism and supposed written on a whim in the course of a single afternoon, it tells the story of a bull living in rural Spain. And despite his intimidating size and strength, is a peace-loving guy who’d rather hang out and (literally) smell the flowers than fight or roughhouse. When he’s mistaken for a mad bull and shipped off to be killed in a Madrid bullfight, his life is spared thanks to his simple refusal fight. The Disney adaptation won an Academy Award in 1938.

That sounds cute.

It’s a sweet, simple story perfectly suited to being told over either 32 picture book pages or 7 ½ minutes of 1930s cel animation… which of course means that padding it out to a 107 minute CGI feature goes about as well as could be expected.

So… not well?

It’s not bad, but you can really see the better, streamlined, more focused short-story version crammed in among all the so-so padding and filler material. The plot is the same as the book in the broad strokes. So instead of expanding on Ferdinand himself as a character the film opts to add an overpopulated supporting cast and a lot of contrived excuses for a protagonist defined by his contentment at remaining inert to go to a bunch of different locations and engaged in physical comedy. It’s not a BAD film, all said, it’s just not as good as it could have been with a little more focus.

Such as?

Specifically, once it gets to what turns out to be the main throughline of the upgraded take on the material; namely imagining a stable of bulls being groomed for the fights as a crew of anthropomorphic combat-sports athletes gradually waking up to the idea that they’re being exploited and maybe don’t have to be. It’s kind of an obvious metaphor but maybe the best one you’re ever going to get for a movie about bullfighting from the bull’s perspective.

Ah, so hence John Cena as Ferdinand, right?

Yeah, but it also turns out voice-acting is ANOTHER thing The Prototype is kind of annoyingly good at. And, I don’t know who else would take so well to the fairly refreshing angle that Ferdinand himself doesn’t really have an “arc” after Act I. He already knows who he is, so his role is more to help the other bulls work through what’s essentially “Overcoming Toxic Masculinity For Kids.”

How’s the rest of the cast?

Solid but mostly unmemorable. Kate McKinnon has kind of a thankless role as a comedy relief goat who feels unnecessary most of the time, Bobby Cannavale is really good as Ferdinand’s defacto rival, and Peyton Manning is randomly in here too as one of the other bulls – and he’s not bad!

Is the animation decent?

Mixed bag. The design aesthetic is overall pretty rote the animation for the bulls and Ferdinand, in particular, is extremely well done – they’re basically just big solid masses of color with faces, and seeing them move around is endearing in the old school Looney Tunes way.

What’s the biggest issue?

I understand they have to draw the story out to feature length, but I wish they’d have found a way to do so that wasn’t so reliant on extraneous comedy beats and chase sequences. It’s all aimed at getting a story that’s overall about a pretty grim side of the animal kingdom when you think about it “over” with younger kids, fine, but it can’t help undercutting the drama even when it heads into a climactic act that’s basically Gladiator but with a bull. It’s also kind of fuzzy on how much the bulls are supposed to know about how their “sport” actually works, to the extent that what’s supposed to be this movie’s version of “It’s a cookbook!” from To Serve Man lands more like: “Wait… did they not already know this? Because they know about other stuff that’s… whatever.”

Do you recommend it, though?

With reservations. Look, the only reason this exists is to have an animated movie for very young kids in theaters over the holidays for whoever gets stuck looking after the kids who’re too young to see Star Wars… so if that happens to be you? Eh, it’s fine.